MicroCinema Reviews
An Apology to the Dead
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Gritty drama features a professor who becomes attracted to a student with a sordid private life in An Apology to the Dead. Although initially put off by a dark, grainy look that may have been only partially intentional, I was drawn in by strong performances from the leads. Troy Randall-Kilpatrick, albeit boneheaded in some of his character’s decisions, was well-rounded, and I especially liked Jenelle Mazaris’s shaded turn as the strong-willed but wounded student. Jonathan Victor also gives a shot of kinetic energy in an edgy spin as a brutal pimp.
Aesop’s Diner
Friday, November 02, 2007
“The Family Johnson” was a hip band on a meteoric rise when front man Bugs (Royce Peterson) flamed out in the usual way.
Later, post-rehab, he tries to reconnect with a former bandmate (Wilder Selzer) who is rocketing to stardom of his own accord in Cara Maria O’Shea’s urban fable Aesop’s Diner.
Peter’s Price
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Crackling noir short features an up-and-coming exec who gets mugged in the parking garage by a crook who, it turns out, grew up in the same neighborhood. How this dynamic unfolds over a tense span of minutes is the crux of Mitchell Cohen’s effective Peter’s Price.
Four Eyed Monsters
Friday, June 22, 2007
The tagline is: “Apathy, technology, paranoia, disease and medication” This is so far the best achievement that I’ve seen in the so call mumblecore genre, which up to now, I quite often considered it an example of lazy filmmaking. There is still no excuse for auto focus, auto iris, and the absense of a tripod no matter how small your budget is. It is fine as an aesthetic choice, but the excuse “I don’t care about those things” is not good enough in my book. Art should have a discernable style, even if you do hand held and out of focus. And this film certainly does in its own pastiche kind of way.
The Girl Who Could Run 600 mph
Thursday, May 03, 2007
An office drone finds his life changed by a free-spirited young woman in Mark Thimijan’s whimsical short drama The Girl Who Could Run 600 Miles Per Hour!
Intoxicated Demons
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Donlee Brussel’s Intoxicated Demons is a hard-edged short drama featuring a young man drinking away the relationship blues who strikes up a conversation with a steely-eyed older man that perhaps, in retrospect, he should have stayed away from.
Video De Familia
Sunday, January 28, 2007
This no-budget multi-award winning Cuban film caused a sensation when it Premiered in Havana because its honesty on breaking an often taboo subject in Cuban filmography: A family divided because of political differences and subsequent exile of one its members. A young homosexual man who has kept his sexual preference a secret from everyone except his sister (Yipsia Torres) emigrated to the US. Cuban veteran actor Enrique Molina plays the dogmatic father, Veronica Lynn his mother who strives to keep the family together. Together they decide to send a video letter to Miami.
The story begins when the family decides to send the exiled homosexual son a video letter. Things go wrong as a few secrets are unleashed during the making of the home video. One of the first things that grabs you by the neck
is the bravura of the performances. The film was shot in 5 long un-interrupted takes crammed inside one small apartment with a handheld shaky VHS camera. But if this sounds suspicious, please do yourself a favor and see it. Video de Familia is a perfect marriage of style and content: It’s dirty visual aesthetic is perfectly justifiable by the story, which is after all, a video letter (meant to be shot by someone that doesn’t know much about filmmaking) But It’s also a tour de force of narrative control and what microcinema is about in terms soaking emotions with the most limited resources. This film elicited tears from almost all the members of the audience that attended its limited theatrical release in Cuba.
It is an important film because it calls for a reunion as the only way to make things work in a country usually stubborn when it comes to politics. In the last 47 years certain Cubans shared a sad history of sacrificing family ties to preserve ideological convictions. Video de Familia’s humanistic intentions are as noble as the honesty of their moving portrayal.
Four stars
Stand-By
This Cuban short picks the ever effective troubled teenager theme to create an cryptic and oppressive mood of alienation in contemporary Havana. Our protagonist is a college student obsessed with finding a solution to an apparently absurd mathematical problem that relates deeply to his own existence. The story is fed to us through signs and icons. I could delve into its meanings but since its open for interpretations and the running time so short, I’ll simply refer to the mood it evokes.
Stand-By is tightly cut (if not always photographed equal precision), in a way it feels like a set-up for a larger story that never gets to unfold, almost as a trailer for a feature film. This feeling is re-enforced by an open ending that leaves you wanting for more or as glimpse of the themes this director will deal with in the future. I’ve always felt that mood pieces work better as features when you truly have time to develop a universe, filled with details that conform a more complete atmosphere devoid of time constraints.
Stand-By doesn’t break new ground, but it’s nicely done and it’s great to see a young filmmaker searching for a voice through alternative ways of storytelling rather than the same tired formulas.
Three stars
Race Memory
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Race Memory is a short that examines contemporary racial issues. The story concerns Horton, an African-American police detective who was brutalized in his childhood by a racist white patrolman. One night at a bar he runs into an old man who might be or not the policeman in question, and so a dueling conversation ensues between the two; which brings up past and present racial issues about them and the society they inhabit.
Where this might seem like a fairly traditional approach (the Two-Guys-in-a-Room, now usually dubbed “The Sundance Genre"), Race Memory is shot in that vein, but later opts for a more experimental editing structure where flashbacks and documentary footage either linked to the story, or as historical background, helps to a create a more dynamic and experimental, often semi-documentary feel.
With sharply written dialogue, Race Memory is slightly hampered by occasional sententiousness in the performances; as if the actors were a bit too self-conscious of the heavy ideas their lines carry. In any case the issue is very minor and doesn’t really detract from this otherwise compelling short. Race Memory has an open ending that induces the viewer to review and question what has been previously debated.
Tomorrow’s Lullaby
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Microcinema audiences will remember Tyler S. Wilson’s excellent and gripping short Abomination, reviewed on this site. For his follow up Tyler now goes slightly into supernatural territory, questioning the human existence.
Where Abomination was very concisely built around a specific event, here Tyler Wilson goes to broader territory that’s clearly influenced by the early Steven Spielberg of Close Encounters, or the teenaged angst of the suburban world in Donnie Darko, and even the rain of frogs in Magnolia.
Teenager Josiah (Trevor Marti) has a very close relationship with his mother; then an unexpected tragedy takes place, and makes Josiah start questioning the meaning of life. With a greater theme, Tomorrow’s Lullaby feels lighter than Abomination, but nevertheless equally crafted.
In the acting area, Trevor Marti is efficient and so is Sean Gormley (previously seen in Abomination); special mention goes to Kelly Devine as Josiah’s little sister.
That said, the atmosphere is beautifully realized and the visual storytelling is strong; the ending before the epilogue is quite effective.
The always-haunting score by Jeremy Delamarter heightens the sense of wandering in this very personal and spiritual quest. I do miss the social commentary ever present in Abomination, although there is a great scene in a high school class where the teacher has ordered as homework for the kids to write down what their future in life will be. Here Josiah explodes about the impossibility of predicting your goals in this scene that brings to mind the rebellious nature of (again) Donnie Darko.
Pacing is not as tight as in Abomination; part of the issue is, I think, that this 30 minute short is paced as if it were the first 30 minutes of a feature, and this feels like an unnecessary stretch that could have been avoided by slightly trimming the end of certain scenes.
Don’t get me wrong if I’m picky: there is a lot to like in Tomorrow’s Lullaby. The film is certainly worth a look for its sincerity, and is another step in the learning curve of a talented director whom although has proven himself very capable on his earlier short, is now willing to explore new ground in shaping new ideas for the even greater work he’ll certainly create in the future.
